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HAD gone on a visit to my native town, after an absence of many years from England, when one day, as I passed along the streets, I caught a glimpse of a face which I felt certain I had seen before, but whose it was, for some time I could not recollect. At length, all at once, it flashed upon me that the man could be no other than John Langdale.

No wonder I should be so long in recollecting who it was, for he was now somewhere about fifty years of age, and I had not seen him since we sat together, between thirty and forty years before, in the same class at the Sunday-school. He was then a bright-eyed, ruddy-faced lad, with a pleasant, open countenance, sparkling with mirth and fun. Indeed, the fun was sometimes unseasonable and inconvenient, disturbing the gravity of the class when we ought all to have been attentive and serious, and sadly trying our good teacher's patience. Yet it was not only the lapse of years and the change from boyhood to later middle life which prevented my immediate recognition of him his whole appearance and manner were different from anything I could have expected. His clothes were worn and ill-kept, as though he had lost all self-respect; his face was thin and haggard, and there were graven on it deep lines, which told plainly of vexation and discontent and utter weariness of spirit. There could scarcely have been a more complete difference between the boy and the man.

I was staying with my brother-in-law, and on reaching home I told him that I had seen a man who I thought must surely be John Langdale.

"Very likely," he said. "He is in the town now, although he has been several times absent from it since we all sat together in Mr. Wainwright's class in the Port Road Sunday-school. Poor fellow! since then he has gone sadly down in appearance, condition, character, and everything."

John Langdale's father was a working man—a carpenter -and when John was fourteen years old he was put apprentice to the same business. It was quite a common thing in Burnley at that time for young people to continue at the Sunday-school as scholars much longer than they do in many other parts of the country. The custom is such a good one that I hope it will never be given up, and I should be glad if it were extended to all Sunday-schools throughout the land. Till young men and women can

engage in useful Christian work, there is no better place for them than the Sunday-school; and it is a very foolish pride which leads them to think they are too old to be learners. It was, I think, John Langdale's first great mistake that he indulged in such pride. I dare say, indeed, there was another reason for his leaving the Sunday-school, which he did when he was about seventeen-he had got a notion that it was a fine thing to have liberty. He did not care, he said, to be cooped up in a close Sunday-school when there was fine fresh air to be had in the country and on the moors. The fact is, there were some older apprentices in the shop where John worked, who laughed at him for still going to the Sunday-school; and John had not strength of character enough to bear being laughed at. They liked his company, too, and invited him to go with them on a Sunday afternoon into the country. Little by little, John gave way. He did not break off from his class all at once; he began by absenting himself now and then on a specially fine Sunday but by-and-by we missed him more frequently, and at length he gave up altogether. Several of us did our best to get him back again, and our good teacher, Mr. Wainwright, sought him frequently; but it was all of no use. Before very long, John ceased to attend the chapel as well as the Sunday-school; and when he ceased to attend our chapel I believe he went to no other place of worship.

By the time John's apprenticeship was over he had formed associations and habits which augured ill for his future course. He frequented the public-house, where his sprightliness and humour made him very popular; and he went to all the races in the neighbourhood to which he could possibly get. His great thought and his constant pursuit was pleasure-pleasure, too, of as poor and low a sort as he could well find.

John Langdale had abilities which, if he had improved them, and if he had been steady and industrious, would have enabled him to command the best situations in his trade. I am quite certain, indeed, that he might, in no

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very long time, have become a master, and a prosperous There is many a man in Burnley, of far less ability than John, and who began life with nothing, who has a good business of his own. John did rise to be a foreman more than once, but he never held the position long.

There was a short time-eight or nine months, perhaps -during which it seemed as though John had really reformed. It was when he was about four-and-twenty. He had formed an attachment to a nice, respectable young woman-she was a good girl, too—the servant of our minister. When Mrs. Hargreaves, her mistress, heard of it, she told Mary, frankly and kindly, that she was afraid it would not do. John was not a Christian-that is, not a Christian in the right sense of the word—not a true follower of Christ; besides, he had been thoughtless and unsteady. But John had begun to attend chapel again; and there he was regularly, first every Sunday evening, and then both morning and evening. Then, too, he promised to do better in every respect, and to be thoroughly steady. Poor Mary believed him, although she was told of some things which he still did, and which might have convinced her, as they convinced nearly everybody else who heard of them, that John's reformation was anything but a real one. Mary had great faith in John, and, like too many young women in her circumstances, she had almost unlimited faith in her own influence. Let her only have John to herself, she said, and it would be all right. It is hardly needful to say that she found herself grievously mistaken, and that very soon. For about a month or six weeks after their marriage John and Mary were seen side by side at chapel on both parts of the Sunday, Mary looking as happy as a queen. Then John gradually dropped off, and at length he absented himself entirely. Poor Mary! Those who sat near her said that her bright, happy look went away entirely, and that, as she glanced at the vacant place where John had sat by her side, her eyes filled with tears. Then,

about a year after, Mary's place was empty too. She became involved in the cares of a family, and her husband never once relieved her by taking care of the children, that she might go to the house of God.

John had not

There is an old proverb, and a true one, "A rolling stone gathers no moss," and it is especially true when the stone is set rolling by unsteadiness and drink. been long married before he began to be a First he went from shop to shop in Burnley.

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a capital workman; but then nobody could depend upon him; and foremen and masters get tired of the best workmen in the world if they are idle and unsteady. Then he left Burnley, and I cannot tell how many places he had lived in. He had now been some years in Burnley again; but he was unable to get work in a first-rate shop, partly because his old reputation stuck to him; but a still stronger reason was that his health was very much broken, and he was no longer able to do a good, vigorous day's work, whilst there were many days when he was unable to work at all.

John was very lonely now. Poor Mary, worn out by disappointment and trouble, had died about a year before. They had buried several children in infancy and childhood, and only two sons had survived; but where they were John did not know-a significant proof that they had not much love for their father. It is to be feared his evil example had done them no good, and that, wherever they might be, they were only too much like what their father had been.

I thought I should like to see John, and I resolved to visit him. I found him living quite alone in a single room, in one of the poorest streets in Burnley. The room was as scantily furnished as it could well be to be furnished at all, and I do not remember that I ever saw a place look more thoroughly comfortless. It was evening when I called, and on knocking at the door a hollow, asthmatic voice bade me enter. I did so, and found John cowering over a little bit

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